Flyers' lesser-known line proving reliable

The Flyers' Evgeny Medvedev scored the go-ahead goal in Philadelphia's win over St. Louis on Monday. The 33-year-old Russian seems to be adjusting to North American hockey and is finding his rhythm.

The Flyers' Evgeny Medvedev scored the go-ahead goal in Philadelphia's win over St. Louis on Monday. The 33-year-old Russian seems to be adjusting to North American hockey and is finding his rhythm. (Matt Slocum / AP)

Wayne FishOf Calkins Media

Flyers developing some depth with Bellemare line

Almost lost in all the hoopla and confetti over the play of the Flyers' newly constructed Sean Couturier-Jake Voracek-Wayne Simmonds line has been the steady work of another less-heralded unit.

Everyone agrees that moving Voracek off the Pierre-Edouard Bellemare-Chris VandeVelde line was a good move. Couturier's line has produced 14 points with a plus-16 since it was put together four games back.

But shifting Voracek allowed Ryan White — who was just getting back to full speed after missing nine games with an upper-body injury — to return to the Bellemare line and this threesome really has been doing some fine work.

It was White and VandeVelde who set up the winning goal in Monday night's 4-3 home win over the St. Louis Blues.

Also noteworthy was the shorthanded goal scored by VandeVelde — off a blocked breakaway attempt by Bellemare — to start the Flyers on their epic four-goal comeback, something that hadn't been done since 2013.

What's made the difference?

"I think they played a real significant role when they were together last year,'' coach Dave Hakstol said. "They're a reliable group. We feel they can give us good minutes, regardless of who they are playing against.

"I think that word reliable is a word that gets glossed over a little bit because there's not a lot of highlight reel to it.''

Bellemare and VandeVelde are also key penalty-kill performers and the Flyers have moved up above the 80 percent success mark, generally considered an acceptable number.

Medvedev improving: Ever since recovering from a concussion suffered earlier in the season, Russian defenseman Evgeny Medvedev has been steadily improving.

His skills once again came to the forefront in the St. Louis game when he scored the game-winning goal with 3:13 to play.

It took a while for the 33-year-old to get his bearings on North American ice but now he seems to have found his rhythm.

Hakstol sat out Medvedev for six games in mid-November. Since returning, Medvedev has been a plus-5 player.

"It's just little things,'' Hakstol noted. "Meddy went out of the lineup. I think it was time for him to come out of the lineup at the time and just be able to watch the game.

"Then there were some health issues that kept him out of the lineup on a more extended period of time. He handled that situation and used it to help improve his game. When he came back, probably the biggest thing if you can point a finger to was [he became] a little bit more competitive in our own zone.

"The rest of the game he's pretty good in a lot of different areas. I thought he did that better when he came back in the lineup. That's a while ago now but he's continued to do those things."

Medvedev had no goals and just one assist in his first 10 games. Since sitting out 11 of 12 games, Medvedev has produced two goals and three assists in his last 12.

Now that he's getting the hang of it, Medvedev looks a lot more comfortable out there and it shows.

"I can assure you that I'm 100 percent used to the new type of hockey,'' he said through a translator. "The coaches have helped get me up to adjust physically."

He took the benching the right way, too.

"It was a very good experience,'' he said. "I saw the game from ... upstairs. I also watched a lot of videos. [I] went over the mistakes, what I did wrong and what I did right and I actually don't regret that I sat out a few of those games."